At a meeting at the Library of Congress on November 17, the
Cooperative Cataloging Council (CCC) completed its work and
prepared for the transition to the Program for Cooperative
Cataloging (PCC). Some of the key topics covered at the meeting
are noted below.

Training Program

A key aspect of this training program is the goal of changing
the culture and values of cataloging. It places an emphasis on
cataloger judgment and decision-making and interaction between
catalogers and trainers. The PCC will be instrumental in
sponsoring and publicizing such training, overseeing the
preparation of documentation, and assisting with institutional
training.

Core Record

Staff of Cornell University and the University of California,
Los Angeles will conduct a pilot projects on the core record for
monographs to establish the cost effectiveness of the core record.

Executive Council

The CCC appointed a nominating committee composed of the three
permanent PCC executive members to identify institutions for the
rotating representatives to the Executive Council. Elections for
these slots will be held in January. Two operational advisors
(Margaret Shen, Cleveland Public Library, and Marty Joachim,
Indiana University, Bloomington) were also appointed to the
council.

Reports of the Task Groups

The CCC task groups have completed their charges and submitted
their reports. Recommendations contained in these reports will be
analyzed to determine which can be decided at the next meeting and
which should be referred to one of the three new standing
committees (automation, training, or standards) or to other
affected groups to be appointed shortly.

The new PCC Executive Council will formally take over from the
CCC and begin its work at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in February
1995.

On November 18 the Cooperative Cataloging Council (CCC) and
its Automation Task Group met with library service vendors at the
Library of Congress to brief the vendors on the Program for
Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) and its automation requirements.
During the morning session over 100 persons, including 41
representatives from 31 vendor organizations, heard presentations
and saw demonstrations of new library technologies such as
Harvard's DOS-based technical services workstation using windows,
macros, and pop-up files; Northwestern University's
machine-generated authority records; LC's Text Capture and
Electronic Conversion (TCEC) (described above); Cataloging
Distribution Service's Cataloger's Desktop; LC's version of online
LC classification; and the Library's implementation of the Z39.50
client server.

During the afternoon session Sarah Thomas, CCC chair, and
Michael Kaplan, chair, Automation Task Group, led a strategic
discussion on the goals of the PCC and the role that vendors might
play in improving systems and services to libraries, thereby
enabling those libraries to make more and better cataloging
available at lower cost. Brainstorming produced the identification
of three areas of functionality as top priority for vendor
attention: Data manipulation (cut/paste, macros); more
sophisticated analysis of data features; and global update of data
in all types of modules. The Automation Task Group also will focus
its next investigations on these priorities. All present concluded
that this meeting marked the beginning of an important dialogue and
that this collaborative initiative should be continued.

Laura Campbell, director of Library Distribution Services,
Constituent Services, is leading a Library-wide task force of
eleven staff members detailed for six months to formulate the
underpinnings of the Library's nascent National Digital Library
Program. The task force will study and make recommendations on
both the electronic conversion of the Library's materials in a wide
variety of formats and the subsequent accessibility and delivery of
the converted collections.

Four staff of the American Memory Program, which served as
bellwether for the digitization effort, will complement the task
force's ranks. Collection Services members are Larry Dixson,
Network Development and MARC Standards Office, and Beth Davis-
Brown, representing the Cataloging Directorate.

On September 29 and 30 the National Library of Canada hosted
a joint meeting with representatives from the Library of Congress
to address mutual interests in an Anglo-American authority file in
cooperation with the British Library. The specific objectives of
the meeting were to identify and assess differences in cataloging
practice for name headings; to investigate achieving harmonization
in AACR 2 rule interpretations and in MARC formats for name
authorities; to inform each other of respective practices in
establishing name authorities; and to exchange information about
respective system capabilities and discuss the systems implications
of establishing an Anglo-American authority file. Among the topics
the group discussed were "division of the world" (names vs.
subjects); cross references; uniform titles; personal, corporate,
conference, and geographic names; and AACR 2-compatible headings.
Noted for each topic was whether the practices are already in
agreement or whether there are differences that need further
investigation before a decision can be reached to resolve them.
Future work will include consideration of a policies convergence
agreement reflecting similar concerns between the British Library
and LC.

The 1994 annual report of the Bibliographic Enrichment
Advisory Team (BEAT) is available on the World Wide Web. Anyone
with a web browser (such as Lynx, Mosaic, or WebExplorer) can read
this document by pointing their browser to:

BEAT is involved in several projects involving the conversion
of the LC Classification Schedules to electronic form, adding
access vocabulary of relevance to small business and
entrepreneurship to Library of Congress Subject Headings,
including summaries in selected serial records, including tables of
contents in selected book records, and continuing work in the
electronic CIP experiment. Other research and development efforts
are continuing with encouraging results, such as linking the
bibliographic record with the table of contents (by using the 856
field) when the table of contents is contained in a file on the
World Wide Web.

In an effort to increase potential sources of cataloging copy
LC is reviewing foreign MARC records in its resource files. To
examine the workflow issues related to the use of these external
source records, the Library is also conducting an experiment in
using them. One of the objectives is to formulate guidelines for
evaluating foreign MARC records. Proposed so far as areas to
examine are adherence to ISBD; the presence of certain fields,
including at a minimum the 245, 260 and, 300 fields; fields that
would be desirable to delete, such as the 856 field; fields LC does
not normally use but that could be "passed through," such as the
015, national bibliography number, field; fields that contain
foreign language data, such as notes and illustration statements;
how to handle such fields and what the implications for the 040
field might be; whether there are fields that should be retained
initially because they are useful for LC's cataloging and deleted
later; fields that must always be examined by a cataloger; fields
consistently absent that have to be added by LC; and whether the
changes that would be needed would be so numerous that foreign
resource records would serve better as sources for information
rather than as bases for LC cataloging records. Samples of French,
German, and Japanese records have been examined for the quality of
their data. Not yet examined are currency of the data and whether
procedures such as deletion of unwanted fields and translation of
selected foreign text (e.g., in notes) can be accomplished through
automation.

The Cataloging Policy and Support Office is reconsidering the
Library's policy on the treatment of family names in cataloging.
Currently, LC creates a subject authority record for the form of a
family name that, after research, is deemed to be the most common
form of that name. See references are made from variant spellings
of the name identified during the research.

The change under consideration is to establish in the name
authority file all family names following AACR 2 rules in the form
found in the item being cataloged. Whether in the name or subject
authority file, each authority record would be authorized for use
as a main, added, or subject entry.

Reasons supporting LC's current policy include: (1) variant
spellings of family names are common and pose a significant problem
in doing genealogical research (e.g., Zimmerman vs. Zimmermann);
(2) using one form of a family name assists the researcher by
bringing together works about that family regardless of the
spelling of the family name chosen by the author of a particular
work; (3) the researcher is led to the form of name chosen for the
heading by numerous see references from all of the variant
spellings found in the research done to identify the most common
form of the family name.

Reasons given for changing the policy include: (1) many
libraries with genealogy or manuscript collections prefer to have
the subject heading assigned to a work reflect the spelling of the
family name used by the author of the work; (2) some library users
are offended that the spelling of the family name that they use
exists as a see reference rather than as an authorized heading; (3)
many libraries do not make see references; (4) manuscripts
catalogers follow the cataloging rules found in Archives, Personal
Papers, and Manuscripts, compiled by Steven Henson, which permits
main entry headings under family names; (5) reference librarians
must instruct researchers in library policy for handling family
names in catalogs.

LC would need to consider the following, if it were to change
the existing policy:

(1) Impact on workload. Cancelling authority records from the
subject authority file would be extremely time consuming. In
addition, catalogers would be called upon to establish numerous
authority records in the name authority file as a result of a
change in policy; subject catalogers would need to assign more
family name headings for applicable variant spellings to some of
the books they catalog;

(2) Impact on products. CDS has prepared and published a
product incorporating all of LC's family name headings. This
product would be made out-of-date by the change in policy. The
size of LCSH would change significantly either by adding thousands
of additional headings or by cancelling all family name headings
currently included.

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